Finally..... a job

Hello there everyone!

     Well I've been waiting a long time to write this post, and now, finally, the wait has ended.  I finally have a job!
     I have been hired at Red Hen Bread as a barista.  While this is not exactly the occupation I was hoping for when moving down to Oak Park in June, I am beyond grateful for this job!  We needed this source of revenue like crazy!
     After yesterday, my first day, I was excited, nervous, petrified, and lost with all the new experiences!  It's going to take a lot learning for me to get to true proficiency at this new job.  The training experience is difficult!  But I think this is going to be fun.

     Just a forewarning, I got a little carried away..... so this is a long posting!

     So the real reason I wanted to write this post isn't so much to let everyone know that I finally have a job, but really more of what I have been trying to learn through this whole phase of unemployment!  I say this because I believe God has been toying with my flimsy heart strings over these past 3 months and the only way I can justify having gone through this is to take the 3 months and use it as a time for self reflection.

     I honestly believe I needed this time without a job to get ready for marriage.  I don't know if I have fully discussed this with +Hannah, but I think I needed to not have a job for a reason.  I obviously knew I wanted to get married, and I obviously knew I wanted to marry Hannah!  But I have learned a lot about marriage by not having a job that I think would have made our first 3 months of marriage a lot harder if I had a job right away.  I know to SO many of you reading this that what I'm about to say is a no brainer, but marriage takes A LOT of self sacrifice!  Now to back myself up before everyone judges me, I knew this going into this commitment!!!  But knowing it and actually experiencing it is very different!  I'm sure when Hannah reads this she is going to laugh and think I'm exaggerating, but I've worked pretty hard while not employed to do things for her and set my wants aside.  I've been the one cleaning the apartment, for the most part, she obviously does things too!  I've done a lot of laundry.  I've done a lot of cooking, even if its basic.  I can't list everything I've done, but I can describe that I've felt many times thankful for being a full time husband!  It's tough work fellas!  It's not always easy to look forward to seeing your wife all day and then when you finally do you have to sit and listen to her cry and complain about PA school for an hour.  But its easier when you haven't been doing anything yourself all day.  I believe I needed this experience to get ready to be the same comforter even after coming home from work myself.  Even after last night, I came home from my first long day of getting trained in and feeling like an idiot all day, but I still had to do the dishes and take out the garbage and carry something out to the car, because you know what, thats fair!  Hannah worked all day too and made the food!  But anyway, I needed to learn this.  And perhaps the best way for me to learn how to live with Hannah was for me to only have Hannah to live with for these last 3 months.  Maybe now I'm ready for a job.  Being married to Hannah is incredible, but maybe in order for me to be an incredible husband back to her meant I had to solely be a husband and not do anything else.  And if thats the case, I'm thankful that I've been able to do that.

     Another lesson I think I can take from all of this is money management.  I have to be honest, I've never had to worry about money.  Even after moving out of my parents house, my job in the ER, even only part time (0.5), was enough for me to live off of easily and still save money.  Now, on the other hand, I almost literally have no money.  All my life's savings has been depleted getting married and living for 3 months without a job.  And even now that I finally have a job, we're still going to struggle with the little money I'm making.  Hannah is much better at managing money than I am, so I'm thankful for her, and I'm still learning.  But this is all a life lesson!  And even if it sucks, big time, maybe its for the best in the long run!  At least I'm choosing to view it that way.

     Lastly, I think I am now with this new job to learn a new lesson, one that is going to really be painful for me: humility.  I love the medical field!  It's incredible!  If you don't, I don't understand you, and thats ok.  But working in the ER for me was an awesome experience!  I got to work with incredible people and learn SO much.  But I'm not sure it was good for my ego.  I know I was only a nurses assistant, but I took great pride in working in an ER.  Not to mention in the same ER as my dad once worked in, in the same hospital my grandpa worked in.  After working in the ER for 5 years and graduating from college, I felt like I was "lowering" myself when apply to Gap or a grocery store.  So now that I finally have a job again, I need to be thankful for it, really thankful!  A lot of people graduating from college are in the same boat I am!  It's hard to describe, but I think I need to learn humility through this barista job.  I'm not learning how to put in a chest tube anymore, but I am trying to learn how to make a mean espresso, and thats ok!

     I believe I have learned a lot while without a job, even if I am unable to articulate it well enough for you as a reader to understand.  I have to thank +Karina Biggers (Swanson) for sending me a link about a month ago to give me a reminder in life, especially on a day when I was really depressed.  It was, to summarize, a podcast talking about God's wisdom.  And to really summarize, what to remember was that God's wisdom entails the best possible results by the best possible means.  Now, it has sucked not to have a job, or any money, or not have any close friends near by, or any family.  But maybe thats all for the best possible outcome......  rereading over what I have already written in this post, I think I've had a lot to learn lately, and would I have learned it as well or at all if my life had gone the way I wanted it too?  I think this goes for my future aspirations too.  I really thought I wanted to go to medical school and get my M.D., but it took me bombing the MCAT twice to take a step back and see that maybe medical school is awesome, but I want to be a dentist.  Life lessons are hard, and I think I need to go through sucky situations because I'm all the more stubborn!  God really has to slap me in the face to teach me.  I have to be eaten by the giant fish before I go to Nineveh!  Maybe I have to be thrown into Château d'If before being rewarded.  I believe God will give us situations in our lives that we cannot handle.  But He has a plan and I guess we just have to deal with that, because evidentially it doesn't exactly line up with ours!

     Now, aside from the biblical standpoint, perseverance is key.  Our economy sucks big time, but you have to keep trying.  Yes I previously worked in an ER for 5 years.  Yes I graduated from college with  degree in Cellular/Molecular Biology.  Yes I minored in Philosophy.  Yes I've done a years worth of undergraduate glucocorticoid research on mice.  And yes, I'm now a barista.  I really have to thank +Dave Schneider for encouraging me not too long ago.  You really kept my head up.

     And as for all my other friends, which the list would be huge to name off, I thank you all for your encouragement!  And for anyone who is reading this who has been praying for me to get a job I thank you.

     Please post your comments or questions below!  I always enjoy hearing your feedback.

Apartment Tour

Hey everyone!
   Sorry that it has been so long since my last post, but as you can imagine, I have nothing exciting happening in my life!
   But I decided to do something for you and make a tiny little tour of +Hannah and my apartment.  It's not a good video so don't get excited!  But it does show you the apartment..... so you may as well watch it anyway.
   I hope this works by the way......

Brief thought on Aristotle's Ethics book 1

     To anyone who is trying to regularly check this blog in its adolescence, I apologize for posting another entry so swiftly.  Also, thank you for reading!

     So my incredible friend Twigz and I are on a personal quest to read "The Great Books" following their 10 year track.  So far we have read a little of Plato, Aristophanes, and we are now on book 1 of Aristotle's Politics.  But our pervious reading was of Aristotle's Ethics (book 1).

     Now, if you are looking for a good summery of this reading I would suggest looking into Twigz's blog, because he is documenting in fine detail what we are covering in our readings.
What I am just hoping to cover in this post is just a brief thought over a small segment in book 1.  And I must apologize a head of time for this being such a weak thought, I'm afraid it is nothing too deep or insightful.  But since I have this blog, I figured I may as well post it and have you make of it as you will.

     The other night as I was laying in bed attempting to fall asleep, I couldn't stop my mind from wandering.  I couldn't help but start thinking about how wonderful a moment I was caught in.  There I was, laying back to back with my beautiful wife ( +Hannah Dégallier ) listening to her sleep and for some reason I was completely over come with joy!  How would I describe this moment to my children one day?  How would I describe this moment to anyone right now?!  I couldn't help but think back to this reading of Aristotle's.  He was trying to discover in this book 1 what was the supreme Good, and how that Good was happiness.  But later on in his writing he tried to make the debate that you couldn't truly evaluate a person's life as a happy one until they died!  Now, while this might immediately catch you funny, he says you can't say that they had a Good and happy life until it is over because you never know what is coming next.  You could have everything one moment and lose it all the next.

     While I think Aristotle has an interesting point, I had to take myself a small step further.  In this case of laying next to Hannah trying to fall asleep, I was happy!  It was Good!  But that instant died.  We move along in life linearly and we don't get to go back to change or re-experience.  Every waking moment we have, essentially, dies immediately after that encounter.  So can't we justly evaluate these passing moments as good or bad?

     I wonder what Aristotle would say.  I do think it served as a good reminder to me at the time though to enjoy the 'dying' moments that I'm encountering.  I currently live in an area where I know no one, I have no money left because I have no job, I have very little to occupy my days because of both of these perviously listed things........ and yet....... here I was, just laying in bed, thoroughly enjoying this moment passing me by, with my sleepy wife, who loves me!  I'm still happy!

     Like I said...... nothing too deep this time, but I still have 10 years of these books to read!  So I'm sure I'll conjure something up eventually!!!  In the mean time, please leave me your thoughts and check out Twigz's blog on our progress through the Great Books!
http://blackbirdwinona.wordpress.com/2013/05/31/unrobed-and-unadorned-thoughts-on-lysistrata/

Solo Chicago venture

       The other day I decided to take an adventure. Not the sort of glorified vacation as to the likes of +Jarrod Tembreull or +Luke O'Neil, but a reflective solo adventure none the less.

       To those who don't know me, I tend to lean more on the introverted side of the social scale. Even growing up in Winona, I really don't think it was even until college that I really began to get out on my own. So as you can imagine, moving into the near suburb of Chicago has been difficult for me! So on Thursday, I decided to push myself on a little challenge.

        

       I haven't really gotten out much since moving to Oak Park.  Despite what I just got done saying up above, I don't think it has so much to do with me being introverted, but more because I have no money.  I think I'll be writing a different post about that later, so moving on, I just haven't gotten out much.  But Thursday I just had enough.  I've been wanting for weeks now to take a solo trip into downtown Chi-town while Hannah is away all day in surgery, but I just haven't found, in my mind, the "right" day to do it.  Thursday was the "right" day.  It was beautiful outside, it had been dawning on my mind all morning, and the main deciding factor, was that I had spent the whole day killing flies in my apartment.....  I have NO clue where they were all coming from, but by 4 o'clock, and after killing my 16th fly, I had to leave.

     After giving my phone and computer a few more minutes to charge, packing my bag, and filling my water bottle, I was off!  I walked the 2 blocks down the road to the Green Line and jumped on.  While approaching downtown the train conductor came on the loud speaker reminding everyone that this train was only going through the Loop, since it was rush hour.  I didn't think much of it because I was going to get off on the 3rd stop after entering the Loop.  What I failed to realize, and what the train conductor failed to mention, was that during rush hour they did in fact only go around the Loop and not out the other way but that they also entered the Loop going the opposite direction than usual!  

It's hard to explain the thoughts that were going through my mind at the time when we got to this first stop that I wasn't expecting, only because I made a silly mistake, and immediately after doing it I realized what I had done wrong.  I decided to get off on that first stop, and I don't know why, because right after I got off it was like the clouds parted and I suddenly realized what an idiot I was for doing it.  The train was just going to keep looping!  I could have still made it to my desired stop if I would have just waited longer.  So after standing there for a few minutes, I just decided to walk.  This turned out to be a fine thing anyway, because by the time I was passing the stop I was initially going to get off on, I saw people that I was sitting by walking off the platform.

     The rest of my time I spent trying to walk to the water front.  This ended up being a little farther than I had expected, but it really wasn't that bad of a walk.  My original plan was to go sit on the beach for a little while, but by the time I made it to the beach it was completely packed, and since I hadn't thought to bring a swim suit anyway I didn't feel like parking it on the sand.  Instead I found a path that lead me out past the beach.  I walked all the way out to that point and watched everyone out on their boats and read for awhile.  It was about as halcyon a place as you can find in Chicago.

    Not that I needed this adventure to discover this, but I am really not meant for the city life.  The whole time I was downtown I felt rushed.  All the waves of traffic, people driving not caring that you are walking by, and just the sheer populous!  Its just not my cup of tea!  Don't get me wrong, I think its going to be an incredible experience to live here for the next year, and I like Chicago well enough for entertainment, but I have no idea how people live here their whole lives.  

    Over all, I enjoyed myself well enough and made it back home safely.  It felt good, surprisingly, to get out into the big world alone.  I'd easily admit that I've enjoyed myself much more when I've gone downtown with +Hannah Dégallier and other friends, but I felt like it was a noteworthy experience none-the-less!

First Post

Hello there world,

    Thank you first of all if you are indeed taking the time to read this blog!  I'm not entirely sure where this "blogging" is going to take me, but I am hoping it will all be worth not only my time, but yours as well as a reader.

    I feel that a brief synopsis of my current life would be appropriate in beginning this blog.  While many others I know are traveling the world or beginning new adventures in life (+Jarrod Tembreull +Luke O'Neil +Paul Warneke, +Chris Bullard, the beautiful Wagner goons), I too believe I am involved in many new adventures!  As I'm sure everyone who is reading knows, I'm recently married to +Hannah Luedtke, the love of my life, I have moved to Oak Park IL, and I am applying to dental school.  These are all things that I believe should be documented, and hopefully beneficial for others to read about in their own lives.  

   I've always enjoyed the idea of sharing my thoughts with the world.  I have personally always enjoyed reading the writings of people like C.S. Lewis or J.R.R. Tolkien writing to friends or simply just writing down their thoughts.  But, seeing as I have no to little aspiration to be published one day, I see blogging as a public journal a great way to share my experiences and thoughts.  If anything, I believe a blog is a more appropriate place to share my life than on a status update on Facebook!

    Please stick with me while I experiment posting a blog.  I'm still not entirely sure what I'll be doing with it, but then again, I'm also unsure about life in general.